Cebu II

I went to the Taoist Temple in Cebu City. It is a testament to the sizable and affluent Chinese community of Cebu. It is located in the district called, appropriately enough, Beverly Hills. On my last day in Cebu I went to Mactan Island near the airport and drank banana shakes and suntanned all day.

Cebu City

This post will mainly focus on the stuff I did in Cebu City. There are some fantastic things to see there. The main church is the Santo Nino Cathedral. It was really serene and peaceful. The Filipinos are devoutly Catholic, and their piety really comes through in their architecture. Next I went to the San Pedro fort. It is a relic of the Spanish colonial times. Magellan's cross was the one planted when he discovered the Phillipines and claimed them for Spain. In fact the Phillipines are named after King Phillip II, an insanely zealous monarch from the Habsburg Dynasty. If you are interested, there is a lot of literature on him. He tried to invade England and built el Escorial Palace in Spain. Carbon market was also really cool. The best way to travel around the city is by jeepney. These are left over jeeps from the war, that have been decidedly Filipinoized. The are garishly decorated and cheap to ride. I stayed on the Fuente Osmena. It is a large noisy traffic circle in the centre of town. In the middle there is a nice old fountain.

Phillipines Redux, Kawasan Falls

I thought Kawasan deserved it own post. The falls are out in the middle of nowhere, about an hour by hubel-hubel, or 45 minutes by multicab, which we took. The ascent takes a leisurely hour. Lucky for me I hiked the falls with Swiss people, pretty hard to tire them out mountain climbing. Unfortunately I could not get them to yodel for me at the top haha.

Phillipines Slight Return

These are a few more shots of the resort and the dive shop. There are also a few from the boat rides out to the various dive sites.